The Lighthouse Keeper
NOTES ON A SEA CHANGE
BY DANIEL W. DRAKE ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER
The decision to turn The Nantucket Independent into a free newspaper was made in midwinter. One could not help but be aware of the trend towards free papers among both metropolitan dailies and urban and community weekly newspapers. Our counterparts at the Martha's Vineyard Times, which has been a free, full saturation paper since the late 1980s, encouraged us to consider the move. Separately, advertisers were looking for bigger circulation numbers than we had achieved as a paid newspaper.

We did lots of financial calculations. The numbers were a bit daunting. The biggest additional expenses would be the freight cost to get the papers over to the island in a timely fashion on Wednesday morning and the postage for the full saturation mailing.

We considered alternatives. Was there a less expensive way to get the papers to the island and have them here in time to insure (as best one can insure) that the post office would deliver them or stuff them in PO boxes that same day? No!

Would some form of distribution, other than mailing, work to get the papers out and distributed in adequate numbers? We did not see any reason to hope that the Historic District Commission would be happy with newspaper boxes on every corner - common in many cities and towns - even if the boxes were designed "…with Nantucket in mind."

The postage increase loomed in mid-May. It was impossible to get any solid information as to what the rate increase would be, but we knew that we would have to convert from periodicals mailing (formerly known as second class) to standard mailing (third class) and the conventional wisdom was that that the increase in that category would be "significant."

So we made our estimates and massaged them. Then, holding our breath a bit, we decided to forge ahead.

The next step was the logistics. How does one figure out how many papers need to be printed? How many mailing addresses are there on the island? Do the papers need to be addressed? (The Martha's Vineyard Times doesn't address any papers. It's one to a customer.) Since the cheapest postal rate will apply only if the papers are delivered directly to each of the island's three post offices for box holders and to the annex for the carrier routes, how does one have some reasonable assurance that the right number are going to each place?

Since the papers have to be loaded bundle by bundle on the small planes that service Nantucket, how is the loading and unloading of the planes dealt with? To avoid extra handling, can some of the papers be delivered directly by the plane transporting them to the postal annex at the airport?

What of the vendors who have been selling the newspaper? Will they want to continue to have it dropped at their business now that they are no longer making anything by selling it? And so on.

Over several weeks, we worked through these issues and developed a game plan. We received a pleasant surprise when the new postal rates were finally published; the applicable rate was less than half of what we had expected. Another pleasant surprise was that all the vendors but one wanted to keep having copies delivered for their customers to pick up and others were added to the list for the "drop" distribution.

We did a dry run with the mailing of the "Summer Arts Guide". It seemed to work just fine.

As FS-Day (Full Saturation Day - June 13) approached, everything we thought of had to be dealt with. Of course, we had to announce the change. Many people didn't notice Others expressed their concern that we had lost our marbles.

From the logistics perspective, we were able to determine with reasonable accuracy, the number of PO boxes and street addresses on the island. Acolor-coded labeling process was devised to help get the papers to the right places. (It takes six colors!). Signs and stickers were printed. A rack was made on very short notice to be placed on the Eagle and another was ordered for the airport. (Alas, there could be no provision for

distribution on the high-speed ferries.) The coin mechanisms had to be removed from the three newspaper boxes on the island and the additional three in Hyannis. (Anyone who can name the six locations gets a free newspaper!)

FS Day dawned clear and bright and the first planeload of papers came in as dawn was breaking. They had the colored labels on them! The ones that had to be addressed were, (The post office only required addressing of the papers delivered by the mail carriers, not those destined for the PO boxes. (The addressing is required, we were told, because Nantucket's carrier routes are "city" routes. The Martha's Vineyard Times gets away with not addressing any papers because the Vineyard's carrier routes are designated "rural" routes. Go figure!)

It isn't particularly easy to move around 14,000 newspapers in bundles of 25, but it got done. Most of them got delivered by the post office the same day. They disappeared from the drop points much more rapidly than when they were for sale. No matter that one address got 15 copies or that there is no way of telling what street addresses also use PO boxes, thereby causing some undeliverable papers since those addresses have no mail receptacles. The entire distribution process went as well as one could hope.

And the reaction? That too was as good as one could hope. Suffice it to say, that there were almost no "returns" at the end of week one.

Week two was a little different with respect to the logistics. One plane arrived early last Wednesday morning with a cargo of paper bundles which ignored the priorities established by the color coding system. Then, as we waited for the second plane, its place was taken by fog. The airport was shut down and the next load of papers arrived at 1:30 p.m. The distribution got done, but it wasn't pretty. There won't be any returns this week either.

The bottom line is that the conversion of The Nantucket Independent into free, full saturation mode has been accomplished. It is a done deal and it promises to be a success.

Many people have contributed to the success of the effort: from Community Newspapers, the printer of the paper, George Roy, the Auburn printing plant director, and Chuck Deleo, the Distribution Director, and their staff; Scott LaForge and his partners of Island Airlines and their freight handlers; Steve Drabkin, the Nantucket postmaster and the postal workers who put the papers in the PO boxes or deliver them; Ken Turgeon and his guys from Nantucket Air Freight who get the deliveries to the post offices; and especially, Donnie Johnston and his sidekick, Rob Francis, who have been working for the last four years to deliver the paper each week to the 50 or so island drop points. To them all, we say thank you!

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The "Lighthouse Keeper" reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily represent the editorial position of The Nantucket Independent. Please send any comments to drake@nantucketindependent. com